Indian Govt summons Wikipedia executives after Arshdeep Singh's Wiki page entry changed from "Indian team" to "Khalistani" Association
On Sunday, Pakistan clinched a close win over India in the second game of the "super four" stage by five wickets at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The match was evenly posied till the last three overs of the chase. India came back into the match by taking the wickets of Mohammad Rizwan and Mohammad Nawaz.
But the turning point in the game came in the 18th over of the innings, when Arshdeep Singh dropped Asif Ali off the bowling of Ravi Bishnoi. Later, Asif hit two fours and one six to seal the deal for Pakistan. It didn't go well with the fans, and Arshdeep faced a backlash on social media.
It didn't stop here. Some antisocial elements changed the entry of the Wikipedia page of the pacer on Sunday, and the entry, which was later restored, stated that the left-arm pacer had been chosen to play for the "Khalistani" national cricket team. An unregistered user had substituted the word "Khalistani" for "India".
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union Minister for Electronics and IT, blasted the distorted Wikipedia entry for cricketer Arshdeep Singh on Monday, claiming that no intermediary doing business in India could allow this kind of false information.
According to ET, a high-level ministry panel led by IT secretary Alkesh Kumar Sharma will meet with Wikipedia execs today to ask them about the safeguards in place to prevent modifications like these from being accepted.
As per the latest developments, a senior government official told the newspaper, "It is a serious issue. The edits have been traced back to servers in neighbouring countries and can cause serious damage to the internal peace and national safety of India. We will ask them (Wikipedia executives) how such an edit could be allowed to stay on for quite some time."
However, numerous former cricketers and ministers, including Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh, have come out in support of the young cricketer.
No intermerdiary operatng in India can permit this type of misinformation n deliberate efforts to incitement n #userharm - violates our govts expectation of Safe & Trusted Internet #wikipedia @GoI_MeitY #SafeTrustedInternet pic.twitter.com/Qm6HdppM1k
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) September 5, 2022
The former Indian off-spinner was one of the first to come out in support of the 23-year-old. He took to his official Twitter account and slammed the critics and asked them to stop blaming Arshdeep for the match.
Stop criticising young @arshdeepsinghh No one drop the catch purposely..we are proud of our 🇮🇳 boys .. Pakistan played better.. shame on such people who r putting our own guys down by saying cheap things on this platform bout arsh and team.. Arsh is GOLD🇮🇳
— Harbhajan Turbanator (@harbhajan_singh) September 4, 2022
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